In January of 2000, my wife went to work for Taco Bell in our town. I was a pro painter and made good money--about 8 bucks per hour--so I was happy...until I lost my job and we really needed the money to feed our three boys. This was her second taco bell store to work for, so she felt right at home and became one of the trusted employees very soon. She was happy as hell. and made almost as much money as I had as a painter. She did not have to deal with the cold or damp weather or hot summer days, chemicals, etc, but made good money.
Years before, I had done a one year stint at taco bell when we first got married, so i remembered what it was like...really it is not that bad.
To make a long story short, she got me hired at the same store as she worked. It is the only taco bell in this 30,000 person town. It is the busiest fast food store in northeast oklahoma with sales in excess of 1.3 million dollars per year. At .79 cents each, thats a lot of tacos, my friend.
Anyway, it didnt take me long to meet everyone and begin to get into the swing of things again. There was Charlie(Boss), the former marine, strict, 60 year-old general manager. When he barks an order, everyone listens. He is very quick to point out one's downfalls and a person must truly impress the hell outta him before he will say good job. But that is being too hard on him. He is a good man who really does care about his employees but doesnt want to spoil them and make them soft because the fast food business is a real animal and eats people on a regular basis. A simple rumor can ruin business for months on end and cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair.
Then there was Mitch. Senior at Northeastern State University....majoring in finance. number cruncher extraordinair. efficient country boy with a love of money. the women loved him. he was truly not afraid to work alongside an employee and show them a faster and better and more cost efficient way of doing things. He held the rank of senior assistant manager.
- posted by Tony @ 10:51 PM